After weeks of speculation, the deal really occurred today: the Utah Jazz officially traded Enes Kanter and Steve Novak to the Oklahoma City Thunder in exchange for a protected future 1st round pick from OKC, a 2017 2nd round pick from the Detroit Pistons, Kendrick Perkins, the rights to FC Barcelona C Tibor Pleiss, and the rights to Tulsa 66ers F/C Grant Jerrett. Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo was the first to report the trade.

How the trade occurred

Just 8 days ago, Enes Kanter made his trade wishes known publicly for the first time after the Jazz’s loss to the Dallas Mavericks. While Utah was very much internally looking at the possibility of trading Kanter before his comments, going public pushed Utah into acting aggressively to find a deal. The Jazz front office insisted that Enes’ demands did not change what they were willing to accept in a trade, but the feeling was that his comments made a long-lasting positive relationship less likely.

As the Jazz shopped Kanter, they looked to teams who had expressed previous interest in Kanter, who had a clear need for a big man, or had assets the Jazz really wanted to acquire. Oklahoma City was on the list largely due to the first factor alone. Oklahoma City had expressed interest earlier in the year, but while Kanter’s a good young big man, the Thunder already have a pretty solid rotation of Serge Ibaka, Stephen Adams, Kendrick Perkins, Nick Collison, Mitch McGary, and Perry Jones. All 6 of those bigs but Collison and Perkins are young.

Furthermore, the Thunder have a hodgepodge of assets that don’t really fit the Jazz’s situation, as we discovered in the trade itself. The Jazz aren’t fans of Jeremy Lamb’s game or potential, especially defensively. Reggie Jackson was a malcontent expiring without a jump shot. If the Jazz were going to acquire him, then they’d almost certainly want to match any offers he received in free agency, and they weren’t willing to commit long term to a core of Jackson/Exum/Hayward/Favors/Gobert, of whom only one can shoot.

Undeterred by this asset mismatch, the Jazz put together an offer to Oklahoma City early in the week which was discussed back and forth until the very final moments of the trade deadline, including as OKC continued to explore a deal with Brooklyn for Brook Lopez. As Quin Snyder explained, “There wasn’t any kind of watershed moment.” It was clear that this was a possibility all along.

That doesn’t mean there weren’t other offers. The Jazz had the opportunity to join the PG trade wheel as well today as part of a Kanter trade, but ultimately chose to keep Trey Burke and move Kanter in this deal. They like Trey’s attitude, and note that young PGs sometimes take several seasons to develop. They also liked adding more flexibility for this year’s offseason through the trade that occurred, rather than removing flexibility in the other offers presented. Ultimately, Oklahoma City’s desire to add Kanter forced the match.

Breaking down the deal

So what was involved in this trade? Let’s break it down, piece by piece, in order of importance.

Enes Kanter out.

Ultimately, this deal never would have occurred without Enes Kanter’s impending restricted free agency. Just like with the Deron Williams trade 4 years ago, the Jazz sought the relative security of known assets over the possibility that an important player would leave without a return. As Dennis Lindsey explained today, “We concede Enes is a very significant player, and he’s going to get a great contract, deservedly so, given his talent and his work ethic. But there’s 20 teams potentially with $10 million or more in room, so there’s some economics there, some supply and demand there.”

The Jazz felt that with the great number of teams with a large amount of cap space, Enes Kanter was going to get a deal for 10 million or dollars more per season. Essentially, Lindsey concluded, “We can’t pay everybody 10 million plus. We had to look at some hard, cold facts.”

The Jazz have already given long-term contracts to Gordon Hayward, Derrick Favors, and even Alec Burks at that amount or more, but felt that Enes Kanter couldn’t be trusted at that dollar amount, due to a confluence of his poor defensive numbers, his poor work sharing the ball, and the inconsistent attitude of both Kanter and his agent, Max Ergul. There’s a sense that Utah might be better with Kanter off the floor than on it, given his rather unimpressive plus-minus numbers during the course of his career.

And unlike with Hayward, Favors, and Burks, Utah felt comfortable turning to the rest of the roster for support. Dennis Lindsey felt both Gobert and Favors had surprised him with their growth, saying “Certainly, Rudy’s exponential growth, we didn’t expect that, I didn’t expect that, but you’ve got to react to it and acknowledge it a little bit.” and “I didn’t expect Derrick developing the power forward skills that he has today.” It was time to reward their work with the positions and roles they deserved.

Oklahoma City’s 1st round pick in.

The short version: Oklahoma City will give the first-non lottery pick that comes at least 2 years after the Thunder fulfill their obligations to trade a 1st round pick to Philadelphia. If that doesn’t happen by 2020, the Jazz will receive 2 2nd round picks.

The long version: In the Dion Waiters trade, Oklahoma City gave a first round pick to Cleveland that was protected for selections 1-18 in 2015, 1-15 in 2016, and 1-15 in 2017, then turns into 2 2nd round picks after that. The Cavaliers then flipped that to Denver in the Timofey Mozgov deal. The Nuggets then flipped that to Philadelphia in the JaVale McGee deal today.

Because of the horrendous ruin Cavaliers owner Ted Stepien caused when trading batches of first round picks in the 80s, there’s now a rule that says teams can’t trade more than consecutive 1st round picks. So the Jazz will have to wait 2 years after the Thunder give this pick to Philly in order to receive theirs. The Thunder currently have the 17th worst record in the NBA, so as of today, they would not give a pick to the Sixers, and therefore not have to give a pick to the Jazz until 2018 at the earliest. However, if the Thunder improve in the last 25 or so games and get to the 19th pick, then the Jazz would receive OKC’s 2017 1st round pick.

That is, unless the Thunder were in the lottery. Then, the Jazz would not acquire the pick until the next year that the Thunder made the playoffs. The Jazz feel confident enough in OKC’s management that, regardless of Kevin Durant’s future in OKC, the team will likely be in the playoffs between 2016-17 and by 2019-2020, before the 1st round pick would sadly fall into 2 2nds.

It’s not a brilliant set of conditions, but it’s a 1st round pick. The going rate for those is about $10 million in salary, even with onerous conditions.

Steve Novak out.

Steve Novak had had two good games in his last week in a Jazz uniform, which made this part of the deal tougher for Jazz fans. But the truth is that Novak has always been a negative asset during his time with the Jazz, as evidenced by the good 2nd round pick Toronto had to give up in order to dump his $3.5 million salary on Utah. Barely playing while Utah gave minutes to a rotating cast of D-League characters over him didn’t do his trade value any favors either.

Dumping Novak in this deal, then, saves the Jazz from having to spend a 2nd round pick in order to dump him in the offseason on another team as they chase after free agents. Agents don’t love negotiating with teams that only have money to spend conditional on a trade, so this might open up free agency negotiations a little bit more than had they not moved Novak today. Back of the envelope math shows that the Jazz could end up having up to $18 million to spend in this year’s free agency, with a Booker waive, maybe allowing them the upper hand in free agency negotiations. We’ll see.

Detroit’s 2017 2nd round pick in.

This one’s actually simple! The Jazz get Detroit’s 2017 2nd round pick. This gives the Jazz 4 second round picks in that draft and up to 3 first round picks. Maybe we’ll see 7 picks traded for the #1?

Again, Dennis Lindsey explained: “”You pooh-pooh 2nd round picks until you hit on one… Those are great chips to go to the poker table and make swaps with as well.”

Tibor Pleiss in.

Tibor Pleiss is a 7’2” German big man who currently plays for FC Barcelona, backing up fellow Jazz prospect Ante Tomic, ironically enough. Dennis Lindsey has watched infinitely more film on Pleiss than I have, so I’ll let him give the scouting report: “He’s a large man, and he’s getting bigger, more developed. He still has some more strength and power work to do, especially as it relates to our league. He’s big, he has very good touch, good FT shooter. He scored big with his club last year, where he was a starter, then he moved over to Barcelona where he’s Ante Tomic’s backup. He’s mobile for a guy that size.” In other words, he is large.

But when asked if he could be a defensive player, Lindsey answered, “I’d say he’s more of an offensive player. But certainly when you’re 7’2”, by definition you’re a defensive presence.” While Pleiss may be literally present on the floor, we’ve certainly learned with a number of NBA big men that size does not always equal defensive effectiveness.

Oklahoma City tried to bring Pleiss over to the NBA this season, but the buyout amount on his contract with his former team, Laboral Vitoria, was apparently prohibitive. That being said, FC Barcelona was able to conduct the buyout for a reported $650,000, just over the $600,000 allowed without paying the remaining amount on the cap. Still, when that “penalty” was combined with Pleiss’ contract demands as the Thunder’s approached the luxury tax line, they ultimately decided against it. The two planned to reopen negotiations for his NBA move this upcoming summer.

Now, though, that’s up in the air, and will probably be determined after the Jazz make initial moves this offseason. Favors and Gobert are sure to remain on the team, but will Booker? Will the Jazz draft a big man in this year’s studded class, or will they give money to a free agent big? All of these questions determine whether or not there’s space for Pleiss to join the roster.

Grant Jerrett in.

Grant Jerrett was the 40th pick in the 2013 NBA Draft by the Thunder. Lindsey wrapped him up by saying, “He’s 21, he’s 6’10’, he’s mobile, he’s shooting 38% from 3 in the D-League, and we like shooting bigs and the spacing that provides.” In other words, this is another Malcolm Thomas/Erik Murphy play for the Jazz, and while those guys didn’t work out, they also never had a chance to play under Quin Snyder. Jerrett should make the Jazz’s NBA roster immediately, as without him, they only have 12 players on the roster. More info on Jerrett’s profile entering the draft is available on DraftExpress.

Kendrick Perkins will be waived. He’s in this deal to make the salaries work.

This summer

So, what do the Jazz do this summer, now with some additional flexibility after this deal? They could do nothing, make a pick, and forward cap space onto the summer of 2016, but given the rising salary cap, that seems like a bad idea: literally every team will have salary cap space that summer.

They could also chase one of the bigger free agents. The free agent market has a lot of role players who might fit nicely in Utah’s new system: Paul Millsap, Danny Green, Wesley Matthews, and Khris Middleton are all conceivable targets. Would a good player come to Utah? Dennis Lindsey thinks maybe: “If I’m a veteran, I can start to see the pieces, not only be significant, but starting fitting together.”

But perhaps the most intriguing possibility raised by Lindsey today was this one: “We can be a serious player during the draft to take in a veteran to speed up our timeline.” The Jazz could offer their own likely top 10 pick, and/or other future assets, to entirely absorb a big-money player for a team that wanted a fresh start. By doing this, the Jazz might acquire a better player than going through the traditional draft and free agency route.

All in all, though, it was a momentous deal. While none of the individual pieces is the tremendously valuable type that you’d hope in return for the former 3rd pick, having a multitude of assets gives the Jazz flexibility to make a big move, possibly this summer, to take the leap as a contending team. It may seem like the assets returned today only further push Utah’s contention timeline down the road, but in reality, it may give them freedom to make the moves needed to win as soon as next season. In the end, with Kanter’s return uncertain at best, the Jazz received significant assets with which to play.

Author information

Andy Larsen

Andy Larsen is the Managing Editor of Salt City Hoops, the ESPN TrueHoop affiliate for the Utah Jazz. He also hosts a radio show and podcast every week on ESPN700 AM in Salt Lake City.

Dan covered Utah Jazz basketball for more than 10 years, including as a radio analyst for the team’s Spanish-language broadcasts from 2010 to 2014. He now lives and works in New York City where his hobbies include complaining about League Pass, finding good doughnut shops and dishing out assists for the Thoreau It Down team in the Word Bookstore basketball league.

Might this have been Kanter’s last game with the Jazz? Choose your own adventure and see! (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)

Enes Kanter is ready to flip ahead to the page where he’s in another city, another jersey, and another coach’s rotation.

According to a late-night update from Aaron Falk that was then corroborated by Jody Genessy, Kanter wants this point in his career to function like a Choose Your Own Adventure novel. And why not?! Those things are fun.

“To go through the swinging door and face the dragon, turn to page 96.”

“To climb up the rope ladder into the helicopter, turn to page 42.”

“To continue your pro career in a different NBA city, find a beat reporter and speak your mind.”

The only problem is: it doesn’t work like that. The Jazz’s hand isn’t forced here just because Kanter isn’t happy, and this can still end in a number of different ways. Sure, as my plugged-in SCH boss Andy Larsen points out, Utah may not want the distraction of having a player in the locker room who doesn’t want to be there. But they’ve been at the brink with others in the past and have smoothed things over. Bottom line: they have some options but, just like in a CYOA book, each option has its consequences.

In the spirit of “Choose Your Own Adventure,” let’s look at the scenarios open to the Jazz and Kanter.

Option 1: Trade Kanter

Many assume this is a foregone conclusion at this point, but there are plenty examples in recent NBA — and even Jazz — history of a team essentially saying to a player, “We’re sorry you feel that way, but you’re under contract. See you at practice.”

Andy’s right: there’s a cultural risk to doing that. But some of that can be mitigated by a proverbial come-to-Jesus meeting where everybody looks each other in the eye and says the right things. Happens all the time.

And it could happen in this case, too. Kanter isn’t easy to trade right now, for reasons that others have spelled out, but mostly because he’s a pending restricted free agent. The only teams that would give up an asset to obtain eight weeks of his services are the one who have interest in leveraging those RFA rights in July, so that limits the field. And, given that Kanter is unhappy on a team that has given him 27 minutes per contest, teams are going to be nervous about trading for him if they don’t have a major role carved out. That further limits the pool of prospective trade partners. Then they have to have something that the Jazz are interested in, so keep whittling.

But these declarations and demands don’t do anything to raise his value. I’m sure most teams that have called since the FalkBomb have been hoping for fire-sale conditions, and it’s reasonable to expect that the Jazz are not going to get an upgrade in return unless they append picks to the deal or take back salary.

Andy’s analysis includes some thoughts on what the Jazz might want in return, and you can also check out the trade deadline Q&A for more on Utah’s asset position and objectives.

Bottom line: the Jazz might have to settle for $.60 on the dollar if they trade Kanter right now. Is that better than getting nothing if he walks later, or having him around sewing seeds of discontent? Maybe. But that’s only door number one.

Option 2: Mend fences, try to keep Kanter along for the long haul

Let’s just jump all the way to the other extreme, and then we’ll backtrack and hit the middle-ground approaches.

As the Jazz and many other teams have done, one option is to sit down, level set expectations, hug it out and get back to work. This seems unlikely — and even some of the most ardent Kanter-supporting fans seem to be ambivalent at this point — but the Jazz have invested time, development and minute on the 22-year-old, so it needs to be mentioned.

Maybe Quin Snyder and Dennis Lindsey can convince Kanter to embrace the reality: namely, that he’s one of four rotation-quality bigs and that his minutes aren’t set in stone, but that he’s an important piece of the puzzle. There’s still a chance that the Jazz could retain Kanter this summer for something that will feel like a discount when the new TV money hits.

But this option feels less likely right now, so let’s turn the page to the next iteration of our Kanter adventure.

Option 3: Mend fences temporarily, keep Kanter until the summer, then offer him the QO and see what happens

In terms of pure asset management, this one still makes the most sense. It keeps the Jazz’s options open. He might wind up leaving without providing Utah any compensation, but at least Utah would get to be in control.

The major risk here isn’t that he leaves, though. The biggest risk, if he’s really serious about wanting a pathway out of Utah, is that he accepts the QO and looks to unrestricted free agency in 2016. Now, the Jazz would have someone eating their cap space and sitting grumpily in the locker room for 12 more months. Snyder would be under no obligation to guarantee his role or minutes at that point, but it could still be problematic in terms of chemistry.

Not to mention — and this gets overlooked a lot! — it would effectively be the end of any trade value Kanter might have. A player on a one-year tender offer can’t be traded without his consent, and even if he is traded, his Bird Rights don’t move with him. The receiving team would basically be getting a rental that they had no right to keep past the one season without using an exception. That makes Kanter virtually untradeable on a QO contract, which is why it’s not as peachy an option as a lot of people make it sound.

Option 4: Keep Kanter until the summer, don’t extend the QO, and watch with a wistful tear as he inevitably walks away

Let’s call this the “screw you” option. If the Jazz just want to, on principle, send the message that they don’t let players dictate to them when they must settle for an unfavorable trade.

And don’t fully buy the logic that Utah would be “letting him go for nothing” in this scenario. The Jazz’s 2015-16 cap situation is such that paying or not paying Kanter makes the difference between being able to go after a coveted free agent with a near-max salary slot vs. having to operate as a capped-out team with only exceptions. Whether he’s an UFA or a RFA, Kanter’s cap hold will be almost $11.4 million until he is signed or rescinded, so the easiest way for the Jazz to ensure they can make a run at one the 2015 free agents is to not offer a QO and to rescind his player rights early. The Jazz may actually prefer that flexibility — and the possibility of a Draymond Green or Paul Millsap — to the prospect of getting unequal value on a February trade.

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So there we are. Kanter wants to turn the page. We’ll see if the Jazz want to as well, or if they’re happy staying in the current adventure. In less than seven days, we’ll know a little bit more about Lindsay and Snyder’s inclination, as the deadline for in-season trades is 3:00 p.m. EST next Thursday.

Author information

Dan Clayton

Dan covered Utah Jazz basketball for more than 10 years, including as a radio analyst for the team’s Spanish-language broadcasts from 2010 to 2014. He now lives and works in New York City where his hobbies include complaining about League Pass, finding good doughnut shops and dishing out assists for the Thoreau It Down team in the Word Bookstore basketball league.

According to the Salt Lake Tribune, Enes Kanter has told reporters that he hopes to be traded before this year’s trade deadline. Jody Genessy of the Deseret News confirmed. Kanter played just over 18 minutes tonight in the Jazz’s 5 point loss against Dallas, but didn’t play beyond the 6:20 mark of the 3rd quarter.

Later, Jody Genessy reported more about Enes’ trade wishes:

Enes Kanter’s agent Max Ergul has been asking for a trade for years and has turned up the heat on Jazz management lately, per sources.

From my own eyes, I can report that Enes was definitely frustrated under Ty Corbin’s regime, especially because he didn’t start a majority of games, even as the Jazz had limited big man options. This year, Kanter has started all but one of his games, but has played essentially the same number of minutes, due to the emergence of Rudy Gobert and solid play of Trevor Booker. As a result, Kanter started the year very upbeat, but has been frustrated at times with the minutes he has received, or media criticism that he perceives as unfair. His agent, Max Ergul, has also been upset with the above: after all, a decrease in Enes’ valuation throughout the league is a decrease in his paycheck, too.

Meanwhile, until now, the Jazz front office had felt that his potential was worth more than the limited interest they had received in Kanter from other teams. Before the 2013-14 season, they wanted to see what he could bring in more than a 4th big role. In Ty Corbin’s final year, he played 27 minutes per game, but finished the season as the 3rd-worst defensive center in the league (out of 67), according to ESPN’s Real Plus-Minus stat. Then, with the Jazz having replaced Ty Corbin with Quin Snyder, the team wanted to see what the talented player development coach could do with Kanter’s skills. While Kanter’s effort (and offense), has improved, ESPN’s DRPM now ranks him as the very worst defensive center in the league (out of 75). In the defensive system that the Jazz are trying to build, Enes Kanter just doesn’t fit.

While the Jazz still feel, even now, that Kanter could develop into a plus player overall, this trade deadline was and is a natural time to explore trade possibilities, given his restricted free agency in the upcoming summer of 2015. Before tonight, the Jazz were very much open to the possibility of testing Kanter’s restricted free agency: if an offer sheet signed were to be relatively low, the Jazz would retain Kanter as a promising 3rd big behind Favors and Gobert. If an offer sheet were too high, the Jazz would simply let Kanter walk, and use the cap space gained to sign a replacement.

Now, though, that patience approach becomes difficult: Utah simply believes too much in the importance of a winning culture to keep Kanter on the team in the short term. Remember, the Jazz are a franchise that, 20 years ago, was the model for Gregg Popovich and company when building the Spurs. Now, with Spurs’ transplants Dennis Lindsey and Quin Snyder running the show, the Jazz insist on building a similar culture by having a core group that stays true to a set of shared principles. By making his wishes known to the Utah media, Kanter’s shown far too publicly that he’s not on board. He just can’t stay for Utah’s final 29 games.

So given that, in my opinion, he will be traded, what are the Jazz looking for? The first cutoff when evaluating potential targets is whether a player has “Jazz fiber”, a phrase Lindsey has used often to describe the type of personality that can fit into the Jazz’s system. No Lance Stephensons or J.R. Smiths here; the Jazz don’t want to replace one headache with another.

The second test is whether the trade would forgo the Jazz’s rebuild from taking place. With Hayward, Favors, Burks, Exum, and Hood all having deals that likely will extend through 2017-18, the Jazz would be reluctant to take on a big deal that extends beyond next season because doing so would significantly limit their flexibility to add pieces to take the team from good to great 2 to 3 years down the road. Likewise, they may also be opposed to take on a restricted free agent as the main component of the deal, given an impending long-term commitment.

The positional demands of the roster are complicated: Kanter’s departure would open up significant 3rd big man minutes. For the time being, Trevor Booker would suffice to fill the majority of those, but long-term, he’s probably not quite good enough for the Jazz’s aspirations. While this year’s draft is loaded with big men, recent draft history shows that those big men take a long time to develop, and probably wouldn’t be ready for a 2015-16 Jazz team making a playoff push. A move that looked towards next season as the Jazz’s time to take a leap would have to figure out some sort of plan for a big man, whether that be acquired in the trade itself or, at least, not disqualifying them from using their cap space on one this summer.

That being said, Utah’s current weakness is at the PG and SG positions. The Jazz hope and expect that one of Dante Exum or Trey Burke will develop into a starting-caliber point guard, and likewise hope that a SG rotation of a healthy Alec Burks and Rodney Hood will be at least league average. But there are no guarantees on this, and the Jazz could consider adding a young player here to increase their chances of getting one or two of them to pan out.

On the court, shooting, energy, and toughness are three areas in which the Jazz see themselves as needing improvement. Utah’s lack of shooting is the single largest weakness in the Jazz’s offense. The Jazz currently are 20th in the league or worse in every shot distance beyond the restricted area, a fact that significantly impedes Snyder’s system built on passing and spacing. The Jazz would be excited to see what a quality shooter could add to the overall effectiveness of the Hayward/Favors/Gobert core. Likewise, the Jazz feel that another defender with energy and toughness could bring synergistic benefits for a team that’s ranked 25th in the league thus far at forcing turnovers. Right now, the Jazz have a lot of players that can either shoot or defend with energy , but very few who can do both. Utah should be looking to acquire someone who either has both skills, or could potentially develop into someone who does.

Are the Jazz going to get everything they want? Probably not: it’s difficult to imagine a team wanting to trade its problem-free, tough, energetic, young, cheap shooter for anything at all, let alone Enes Kanter. But the Jazz are considering all of the above when making a trade, and they’re hoping to hit at least a couple of the check boxes.

For what it’s worth: Kanter does still have some value around the league. I’m told multiple teams have at least inquired about the big man before tonight’s events, and I suspect even more bargain-hunting teams will have called since. While such a public declaration on Kanter’s behalf hurts the Jazz’s leverage, in that keeping him in restricted free agency is no longer really a viable option, it does at least bring Kanter to the top of team’s radar screens for a short time.

As for specific trade ideas, we talked about 6 of them on this week’s Salt City Hoops Show. Since then, I’ve been sent many more on Twitter that we’ll be either writing about or talking about on a later date. If this RealGM thread is any guide, fans from teams around the league are interested and will trade items of value to receive Kanter’s services. We’ll see if real NBA front offices agree.

Still, it promises to be an intrigue-filled week for Jazz fans; we’re now just 7 days away from the NBA’s trade deadline. Much more on this topic coming up on Salt City Hoops in the week to come.

Author information

Andy Larsen

Andy Larsen is the Managing Editor of Salt City Hoops, the ESPN TrueHoop affiliate for the Utah Jazz. He also hosts a radio show and podcast every week on ESPN700 AM in Salt Lake City.

Dan covered Utah Jazz basketball for more than 10 years, including as a radio analyst for the team’s Spanish-language broadcasts from 2010 to 2014. He now lives and works in New York City where his hobbies include complaining about League Pass, finding good doughnut shops and dishing out assists for the Thoreau It Down team in the Word Bookstore basketball league.

Is there a more fascinating player this Utah Jazz season than Enes Kanter? Probably not.

Understandably, much of the conversation has been directed elsewhere. Gordon Hayward and Derrick Favors are quietly putting together All-Staresque campaigns. Rudy Gobert has taken a massive leap forward. Dante Exum and Trey Burke have given us a lot to talk about. But what’s happening with Kanter may be central to some of the more important questions facing the Jazz in the calendar year — especially since the Turkish big man has been playing some of his best basketball in late January.

Just in the last two weeks, Kanter has put together some of the best games of his pro career, at least on paper. He has had three 20-and-10 games in his last six outings, including two beastly rebounding performances. He’s also evidently become the team leader in mojo, with a testy interview about playing with an “edge” following the Clippers-Jazz cage match, and then his brazen remarks going into the Golden State game. He’s put himself back in the conversation as a potential piece to what the Jazz are building.

But beyond the raw numbers and the bold words, Kanter’s season is still hard to describe in terms of absolutes. To compound the enigma, a lot of advanced metrics don’t even agree with each other in terms of summing up Kanter’s contributions. PER has him at a career-best 17.7, which is certainly above average and would make him the fourth best rotation player on the Jazz. But stats like ESPN’s Real Plus-Minus have him tracking significantly worse. At -3.46, RPM would have you believe that he’s the least positively impactful Jazz player and one of the 50 worst in the NBA. Bridge that gap: top 60 in PER, bottom 50 in RPM.

The question with Kanter, at varying degrees of fairness, has always been whether or not he helps the team win or simply gets empty numbers because of his handful of real strengths. I’ll be the first to admit that it seems harsh to a solitary player on a team that may not hit 30 wins, but on the other hand, very few players have as strong a correlation between their best games and losses for their team. I sorted Kanter’s best outings by B-ref’s GameScore and examined what the team outcome was.

The crux of the Kanter question: So far, a good game for Enes has not been a recipe for team success.

Caveat time: there’s an obvious flaw here. Kanter is, at best, the third or fourth best Jazz player at present. So if there’s a game where the Jazz are relying on him to the tune of 16+ points, it likely means that somebody better than him is missing or struggling. So don’t fall for the temptation to over-linearize this information and jump to some conclusions that ignore a whole lot of other information. But it does re-raise an important question…

Can Enes Kanter help the Utah Jazz be better?

So far, it’s a mixed bag as we try to answer that. But there are definitely some things he is doing better over the course of the last several weeks, and some things where familiar questions persist. Let’s take a look.

Nobody will be shocked to hear that Kanter is rebounding particularly well, and turning a lot of those opportunities on the offensive end into second-chance points. He accounts for 3.6 second chance points all by himself, and that doesn’t into account the extra possessions he generates for his teammates. That number has crawled up to 4.3 in December and January, per NBA.com’s stats.

He has also been running the floor pretty well, which is saying something since he is such an attentive rebounder. On the season, just 9% of his points have come in transition, significantly lower than the team’s 13%. In January that’s up to 15%. Let’s be clear: that’s still only a bucket a game, but in a league where transition points make up such a small percentage of a team’s offense, a bucket a game from one player is at least enough to put some pressure on transition defenders, as Kanter has done quite nicely in some recent games. Look at how often he’s one of the first down.

It should surprise nobody that he’s an above-average finisher in the restricted area, converting on 67.7% of those opportunities compared to a league average of 62.8%, and this despite being primarily an under-the-rim player. He is getting much better at reading the defense in those situations and knowing when to bully his way through defenders and when to employ an expanding range of nifty footwork moves.

If he’s scoring well off the glass, in transition and in close but his overall scoring is flat, then it stands to reason that he’s dropped off elsewhere: jump shooting.

He’s barely making a third of his mid-range shots on the season, and in January that dropped to 23%. You simply can’t be a “stretch four” that helps your team space the floor when you miss three of every four midrange jumpers. He has stopped taking above-the-break three-pointers, which is the only zone he was shooting particularly well from, and his corner three remains an iffy proposition at best.

This is particularly a problem for the Jazz when it affects spacing. A lot of NBA research indicates that actual performance on midrange shots matters less than the perceived threat. More often than not, Kanter still draws at least a half-hearted contest, but moments like the one below are becoming a lot more common as teams sometimes play the percentages and give him room on the jumper. This is the opposite of gravity.

Gravity? The spacing right before an Enes Kanter miss from the elbow.

On defense, Kanter has had a much better January than any month I can remember. Some of the proof points of this are just behavioral things where you can see him trying harder to help and get back, rotate the right way, etc., but it’s also showing up in the outcomes. His DRtg for January is down to 103.4 compared to 109.1 for the year. At a team level, 103.4 would be good enough to teeter at the edge of the top 10, so he deserves some credit for making improvements to help the team defend better.

In fact, Kanter’s negative impact to Enes might not be as widespread as you’ve been led to believe. Among his most common 5-man units, only two perform significantly worse than team average on defense. The problem is that both those lineups are heavily used: the original starting lineup of Burke, Hayward, Favors, Alec Burks and Kanter, and then the replacement lineup with Joe Ingles in Burks’ spot.

Still, this graph makes one wonder if Kanter’s overall poor DRtg is more reflective of a larger defensive problem with that group.

Not all of Kanter’s most frequent lineups are bad defensively, per NBA.com.

This doesn’t mean Kanter’s a good defender, by any stretch, especially where it counts. His rim protection numbers are second-worst among players who guard at least four attempts a game at the rim: 60.1%.

But it’s possible to be a non-rim protecting big and still play at an All-Star level for a good team. Just ask Paul Millsap, Kevin Love or Chris Bosh. It just helps when you’re playing with guards who can contain their guy on the perimeter. When you have sieve-like defense outside and non-rim protecting bigs back behind, that’s where you have trouble. Maybe some of that is evident by the lineups above. The fact that you can guard at 114.7 per 100 (the original starting five) and then replace one guard and defend at 81.5. Or 115.6 with the the next lineup down, all the way to 93.2 when you throw Exum in there. The Jazz just have to defend if that’s who they want to be: a team that constantly needs to compensate either for the lack of help down low or for the containment problems on the perimeter.

So back to the original question: can Kanter help the Jazz win? He still hasn’t had a positive net rating in any month this year, so if you believe the answer is yes, then the argument is based on two weeks’ play. The Jazz are +11.4 in those six games, roughly corresponding to the lineup change that resulted in Kanter running more minutes with one of his best defensive combos. So if the Jazz are going to win with Kanter on an ongoing basis, he’s going to have to keep some things up, but the Jazz are likely going to need some continued lineup alchemy to make it work.

Whatever happens, it’s fascinating. The Jazz have time on Gobert, time on Exum, time on Burke. They don’t have the luxury of a lot of time to decide on the Turk. There’s urgency to figure out what Kanter means to this team, and this January stretch has furnished plenty of talking points for both sides of the argument.

Author information

Dan Clayton

Dan covered Utah Jazz basketball for more than 10 years, including as a radio analyst for the team’s Spanish-language broadcasts from 2010 to 2014. He now lives and works in New York City where his hobbies include complaining about League Pass, finding good doughnut shops and dishing out assists for the Thoreau It Down team in the Word Bookstore basketball league.

Ben Dowsett is a life-long Jazz fan and general sports fanatic based in Salt Lake City. He also writes for Nylon Calculus (Hardwood Paroxysm/Fansided Network), and can be heard on the airwaves for the SCH podcast and appearances with ESPN AM 700. With a strong background in both statistics and on-court fundemantals, he writes primarily as an in-depth strategic analyst. He can be found on Twitter at @Ben_Dowsett.

The Jazz have a 6’11, gregarious, occasionally Santa-themed, oft-bearded Turkish elephant in the living room as they play out another rebuilding season.

Just as with burgeoning star Gordon Hayward last year, Utah faces the restricted free agency of big man Enes Kanter this upcoming offseason after they passed on extending him this summer. This means the team is operating within the same sort of layered context they experienced both last season with Gordon and in previous campaigns with guys like Paul Millsap and Wesley Matthews, only with the added wrinkle of a first year coach implementing a new system to factor into the arithmetic.

How to properly evaluate Enes both presently and with an eye to his potential future and role with the team is a careful enough balance. But toss in a couple extremely relevant dates and the fact that, barring a trade, 29 other teams will have a chance to toss potentially silly amounts of money at the big Turk come July and force the Jazz into tough calls. Big elephant spilling red wine everywhere, indeed.

Kanter himself isn’t making things any simpler recently. After a start to the year that had many writing him off as yet another sunk cost with uneven play, particularly defensively, Enes has put together a number of strong showings in recent weeks. SCH’s own Dan Clayton touched on his improvements generally last week, and despite a strange game team-wide Saturday night that curiously saw him play just a hair under 20 minutes, Kanter has indeed kicked it up a notch. He’s begun to slowly piece things together on the defensive end, finding little bits of comfort within Quin Snyder’s slightly more conservative approach and learning from his coach’s frequent teaching moments. He still has large warts here, some of which will never subside entirely, but his effort and fire are clearly there and he doesn’t appear to be openly thinking about his next move in such a painfully obvious way as many of us are accustomed to. He also put up a career-high point total last week versus New Orleans, and is showing an aggressiveness and comfort level with the ball that must make offensively-minded GMs around the league salivate.

Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves, though. While process is absolutely a huge theme for this team, it’s very different than tangible results; the Jazz would love to see some of the latter to aid in what might be a difficult decision with regards to Kanter’s long term status, but have thus far mostly seen only the former. His shooting efficiency figures are actually down a bit from his season averages since the beginning of December, though still up on last year’s numbers overall, and he’s rebounding at roughly the same rate on both ends of the court in this period. Meanwhile, any improvements defensively haven’t translated to team results just yet, as his already team-worst (among rotation players) defensive efficiency figure while on the court has actually gotten worse in the last three weeks. The team overall has somehow regressed here over this period as well, and in all fairness Kanter hasn’t actually been the worst rotation player in that time, but it’s tough to get too overjoyed with a performance that, at least as far as the numbers go, really isn’t much of an improvement.

All of this is a way of saying that Kanter’s situation is a tough one, and one unlikely to reveal any end-all solution before the Jazz have to make a decision or series of decisions regarding his future. So with that in mind, let’s briefly look at Utah’s general options going forward:

Move Him Before the Trade Deadline:

A pretty unlikely scenario, for a variety of reasons. It’s rare to see any team give up real assets for a guy slated to hit RFA in just six months given the lack of full control they then maintain over his situation, and it’s unclear whether the Jazz would be able to bring back anything of real value. Teams like Memphis, Atlanta, and Washington are all at least pseudo-contenders or better in what’s currently as wide open a title race as we’ve seen in many years, and all might have both a desire for an upgrade at a third big position and a later first round pick plus the sort of mixture of cap fodder and veteran presence the Jazz would likely ask in return. But it’s so tough to evaluate how any of these front offices would view Kanter, and whether they’d even want to part with those sort of assets for what could end up being a six month rental.

Complicating the process to some degree could be Kanter’s agent, Max Ergul, who retains zero other NBA clients and could end up being something of a wild card. Teams can have issues dealing with solo agents they aren’t accustomed to working with, and there have been whispers that Ergul will attempt to squeeze every dime possible out of his most lucrative talent. Don’t expect to see Kanter moved before the deadline unless the Jazz brass is more down on him than most of us had realized, or unless a godfather offer comes along.

Sign-and-Trade Him in the Offseason:

Perhaps even more unlikely, if for no other reason than the simple rarity of this happening outside deals for megastars changing teams (a la the S&T Cleveland and Miami struck when LeBron took his talents to South Beach in 2010). The value returning would likely be even less than a midseason trade, and would essentially amount to a last-ditch effort to salvage some value for Kanter that could actually end up making Utah’s front office look a tad silly. It’s a vague possibility for technical reasons, but quite improbable.

Push Him to Sign the Qualifying Offer:

If interest is light around the league in July, the Jazz could lean on Kanter to sign the one-year, $7.8 million qualifying offer they’ll offer him as standard practice. This is a very unconventional route to restricted free agency, and one that would see Enes become an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 2016. Pistons big Greg Monroe took this door in September, and he and Kanter share several on-court characteristics.

It’s tough to imagine Ergul (or Kanter, for that matter) accepting such a low figure, though the promise of UFA as the new TV money kicks in could tip the scales a bit. The Jazz would then get one more year to evaluate Kanter in this system and alongside his teammates, though they would relinquish matching rights and risk losing him for nothing. This route also seems fairly unlikely given a number of factors, and the Jazz should probably plan on making a final decision on Kanter’s future in Utah by this offseason.

Let Him Enter RFA and Proceed Accordingly:

Far and away the most realistic scenario for the Jazz is simply to let the process that they in part chose to initiate this offseason play out. Utah still has a good bit of flexibility on their cap and a fully loaded stockpile of picks and cheap, movable contracts, and they can afford to gauge the market for Kanter with Rudy Gobert waiting in the wings. Monroe proved just how thin the market can be for Kanter’s sort of player, a power forward incapable of guarding centers who isn’t a true floor-stretcher in the vein of a Channing Frye, and Dennis Lindsey and the Jazz brass may count on a similar trend placing much of the leverage firmly in their hands.

But it only takes one (expletive), as they say, and Kanter’s offensive skill set has to be desirable to a team with a coach confident he can coax league average defense out of him. A brief canvas of some smart folks I talked to revealed a ridiculously wide array of offers some might be willing to tender him given the right team construct; from three years, $20 million to the same sort of four-year, high-$40 million figure Derrick Favors signed for last offseason. The new TV money set to kick in in 2016 may throw things like RFA into an absolute frenzy as teams race to be the first to exploit potential imbalances, and letting Kanter receive offers that might even top out higher than Favors’ number is a major crapshoot. How Enes compares to guys like Nikola Vucevic (signed for four years, $53 million starting next year), Kenneth Faried (four years, $50-plus million), or Tristan Thompson (also entering RFA this offseason) is also a topic that garners a wide array of viewpoints, with some opining he belongs in that class – or will receive an offer that says as much, at least – and others placing him firmly a tier below.

The Jazz relinquish some control with this approach, but very little they weren’t already aware of after letting this previous offseason pass with no extension. They get the benefit of making their draft pick(s) beforehand, a process that could play a huge role in Kanter’s future. Names like Towns and Okafor, or Porzingis and Kaminsky a bit further down, have a great deal of potential appeal and would come at a fraction of Kanter’s immediate cost.

There are so many moving parts here, regardless of how the Jazz choose to proceed. Where the team feels it falls on the rebuilding timeline is a big factor, as is how well Kanter continues to adapt to Snyder’s system over the course of the year. The TV money is a massive confounding factor that looms over any and all major salary moves for every team, and how it plays into Utah’s specific salary construct will be of paramount importance. Lindsey and his staff are in the rough stuff now – these sorts of decisions will become more regular and more important over the next few years as the Jazz attempt to claw their way back to relevance. It’s a fascinating game of give-and-take in this ever-changing NBA world, and it should be an intriguing several months ahead.

Author information

Ben Dowsett

Ben Dowsett is a life-long Jazz fan and general sports fanatic based in Salt Lake City. He also writes for Nylon Calculus (Hardwood Paroxysm/Fansided Network), and can be heard on the airwaves for the SCH podcast and appearances with ESPN AM 700. With a strong background in both statistics and on-court fundemantals, he writes primarily as an in-depth strategic analyst. He can be found on Twitter at @Ben_Dowsett.

Ben Dowsett is a life-long Jazz fan and general sports fanatic based in Salt Lake City. He also writes for Nylon Calculus (Hardwood Paroxysm/Fansided Network), and can be heard on the airwaves for the SCH podcast and appearances with ESPN AM 700. With a strong background in both statistics and on-court fundemantals, he writes primarily as an in-depth strategic analyst. He can be found on Twitter at @Ben_Dowsett.

Perhaps earlier than some had hoped for, the mettle and resiliency of Jazz fans everywhere is being tested. After a summer full of bandying from every direction about just how differently this Utah team would be perceived than those of the last few years, a season-long losing streak featuring a couple disappointing performances threatens to strain the resolve of a passionate fan base desperate to see a relevant team again.

It’ll be easier to hold steady than last season, of course, when their first five-game losing streak came in…well, their first five games, amid an 0-8 start to the year. The Jazz had fewer bright spots across the board a year ago – less exciting draftees, less development from incumbent young pieces, and far less support for the coaching staff.

It’s the issues that have carried over into this year causing the potential unrest, though. And at the very top of the list, unquestionably, is the team’s continuing subpar defense. After last year’s cellar-dwelling per-possession showing, things have somehow only gotten worse thus far – Utah isn’t dead last, sitting 28th and well ahead of putrid Lakers and T-Wolves units, but their 112.5 defensive efficiency is actually more porous than the 13-14 iteration.

The chief culprit is about as simple as they come in this game: Utah remains woefully unprepared against pick-and-roll offense, by far the league’s most common play type. It seems a sad irony that a Jazz franchise with Jerry Sloan’s banner hanging from the rafters would be so clumsy defending a play he’s largely responsible for popularizing around the NBA, but here we are.

(For this piece, we’ll take a big assist from Synergy Sports and their detailed tracking of, among other things, specific play types and efficiency within them. A broad disclaimer: these sorts of numbers are best used as a rough sketch of on-court happenings. They’re susceptible to occasionally miniscule sample sizes and the same sort of limited scope that so many of our other statistics are. And perhaps more importantly, particularly for the defensive figures we’ll use as a backdrop herein, they have a wide margin of error; plays are tracked on the basis of their finished outcome, meaning a shot attempt, drawn foul, or turnover. This can cause some amount of noise, as plays may begin as a particular type of action but morph into another before the end of the set. All of this context will be carefully considered.)

The more general figures first: Utah was 26th in the league last year defending P&R ball-handlers and 27th against roll men, speaking in terms of per-possession efficiency allowed. They were also 29th versus spot-up attempts, allowing over 41 percent shooting – as mentioned above, a number of these tries come from plays that originated as pick-and-rolls. They’ve improved a tad on the former so far on this young season (22nd and 19th versus handlers and roll-men, respectively), but have cratered to an even larger degree against spot-ups, allowing a gross 44.4 percent on nearly 300 attempts already.

Allowing the necessary error margins, this data lines up roughly with the eye test. Coach Quin Snyder’s more conservative scheme versus high screen-and-rolls has helped in contrast to outgoing Ty Corbin’s ever-changing system, one that both confused his young players and forced them into terrible spots. In particular, Corbin’s partial reliance on high hedges from guys like Enes Kanter and Derrick Favors often left the Jazz at a numbers disadvantage plus drew a vital rebounder far away from the rim, and this sort of thing has been eschewed, outside roster members with skill sets more conducive to it. The young crew is forcing slightly more inefficient midrange looks, and conceding fewer easy buckets at the rim.

But by contrast, they’re getting crushed by individual matchups and resulting poor help defense. I covered some of this last week, and it’s not going anywhere. There are simply too many possessions that look something like this:

This is child’s play for any competent NBA offense. Blame lies in different places on a play-by-play basis, from the ball-handling defender getting caught in a pick to the big defender mixing up his footwork, or even sometimes the helper getting over-zealous. But the results are piling up. Per NBASavant, the league average team allows 38.5 percent of their opponent 3-point attempts “Wide Open”, or without a defender within six feet. The Jazz? They’re allowing 47.2 percent of all opposing triples under such luxurious conditions.

Responsibility for the team’s struggles versus such a common play type is like my Thanksgiving dinner last week – plenty to go around for everyone. But two names within the rotation pop out: Enes Kanter and Trey Burke.

Kanter has actually improved a great deal, and in part gets a bad rap from folks like myself. He’s nowhere near the flailing mess he was a couple years back, has clearly worked on his body control and getting straight up in the air, and is ever so slowly picking up bits of nuance even as he remains far behind his peers here. He’s often left out to dry by ineffective Jazz guards (more on this in a moment), and his confidence isn’t being helped by repeatedly staring down 2-on-1 situations right in his grill. He’s miles away from average still, but at least appears to be trying.

His biggest issue is actually with foot speed, something he’ll never be able to change. Per Synergy, Kanter’s real failings over the past two years have come in related pick-and-pop varieties, where he’s allowing 44 percent between this year and last. His per-possession figure allowed placed him in just the 36th percentile league-wide last year, and though the sample isn’t yet large enough for this season, watching him doesn’t give one the idea that things are improving much. He’s just not fast enough for NBA-level help-and-recover, and teams know it. Bigs with any sort of range lick their chops when they see him opposite them:

But again, separating Kanter’s struggles (and those of all Utah bigs) versus pick-and-rolls from those of the team’s collective backcourt is both tricky and ultimately painstaking. Watch the following play – who do you think is most responsible for this open 3 the Jazz allow?

If you said Trey Burke, well done. It’d be easy to pin this one on Alec Burks’ over-helping, something he’s absolutely guilty of frequently, but let’s slow it down. Here’s Burke taking a silly, circuitous route around Ibaka’s pick, one where Trey basically screens himself:

Here’s the resulting 2-on-1, the type so often facing Kanter as described above:

In fact, Burks had no choice but to help so far off his man once Trey fell so far behind the initial action. If Favors helps, it’s a dunk at the rim. If Hayward helps, it’s a short pass to a wide open 3. In an instant, the best-case scenario here became Burks helping and conceding a slightly less efficient open 3 – the trickle-down effect is quick and sharp, and these sorts of mistakes are everywhere.

Burke, as the worst consistent offender, gets a detailed look here, but really any member of Utah’s perimeter unit could be spotlighted for their various failings either on or away from the ball.

And said failings can get very ugly, especially in Burke’s case. The degree to which he dies against picks is simply alarming, and indicative of long-term concerns – both with his size and his commitment on this end of the court. Watch him literally stop running for no reason after encountering slight bumpiness (honestly, hardly even a nudge) on a side P&R set, yielding a wide open corner 3 to Chris Paul:

Synergy data backs up a negative eye test here, as well. Burke is running directly into the pick (as opposed to going above or below it) an unusually high percentage of the time, and his inability to recover with any urgency whatsoever has caused his per-possession efficiency allowed in these situations to skyrocket. Any on-ball defender is in some degree of trouble when running smack-dab into a screen, but the frequency with which it happens to Burke and leads to an advantageous situation for the opponent is killing the Jazz. The team’s defensive rating while he’s on the floor is worse than any other roster member (including non-rotation players), per NBA.com – they go from mere decimals better than the comical Lakers D with him on the court to a hypothetical tie with Portland and Washington for the league’s fifth-stingiest unit when he sits.

This is a long road for the Jazz, both as a team and individually. Snyder deserves to be part of the conversation as well despite obvious difficulties separating his blame from the players’, as his team has failed to produce the sort of results he was confident would appear under his regime thus far. Utah is still a long way away from the sort of single unit, on-a-string cohesiveness good NBA defenses exhibit, and their play versus the league’s simplest and most frequently-run play is at the forefront of their issues. The team remains young and with plenty of room to improve, but as negative results keep pouring in, concerns are giving way to legitimate questions. Here’s hoping they find some answers, and soon.

Author information

Ben Dowsett

Ben Dowsett is a life-long Jazz fan and general sports fanatic based in Salt Lake City. He also writes for Nylon Calculus (Hardwood Paroxysm/Fansided Network), and can be heard on the airwaves for the SCH podcast and appearances with ESPN AM 700. With a strong background in both statistics and on-court fundemantals, he writes primarily as an in-depth strategic analyst. He can be found on Twitter at @Ben_Dowsett.

Besides writing for Salt City Hoops, David contributes to the Utah Jazz coverage for the Deseret News and has written for the Utah Jazz website and Hoopsworld.com (now Basketball Insiders). He graduated from BYU and works for LDS Philanthropies. He and his incredibly patient wife have four amazing children, with a fifth joining the Smith family fun soon.

Enes Kanter’s 2014-2015 season has the feel of a Choose Your Own Adventure book—it could go a few different ways. And he is one who will have a big say in how things play out. It is safe to say that this upcoming year will be, by far, the biggest of Kanter’s young career. In fact, few Utah Jazz players have more riding on this season than the big Turk.

It’s been an up and down three years in the NBA for Kanter. Drafted at #3 in a seemingly shallow draft, he played minimally his first two seasons. With Al Jefferson, Paul Millsap and Derrick Favors in tow, Kanter was the fourth big. As a rookie, Kanter impressed quickly with his strong rebounding. As a sophomore, his scoring became much more refined and toward the end of the season, Kanter was one of the most consistent players for Utah. A late injury curtailed what was strong progress.

After Jefferson and Millsap were not brought back, he became a much more prominent player last season. The results? Truthfully, they were mixed. Let’s start with the positives: Kanter put up career numbers in most categories: 12.3 PPG and 7.5 RPG in 26.7 MPG. He had nights where he dominated offensively, showing a shrewd repertoire of moves. Kanter particularly did well against opposing back-up bigs. Kanter showed a solid perimeter touch, connecting on 39 percent from 10-16 feet—a good sign, as he shot a bit more from that range—17.1 percent of his attempted field goals (up from 13.2 percent).

Kanter also displayed more of a willingness and ability to pass the ball. After a tough start and a rocky December, he improved over the last few months of the season. Post-All-Star break, Kanter put up 13.6 PPG and 9.7 RPG – up from the 11.6 and 6.2 he averaged previous to that. He became a regular double-double guy. Few players can do that consistently, so the potential he showed over several months is downright tantalizing. It was encouraging to see him up his game in March and April.

On the other side of the spectrum, Kanter had some struggles. Clearly the biggest thorn in his game is on the defensive end, the primary reason why he only started 37 games. He finished with a Defensive Rating of 112, something that has unfortunately increased each year. This could be partly due to his facing more front-liners more often. Overall, Utah has a -12.2 +/- over 100 possessions with Kanter on the floor. He has shown flashes of being able to make stops, but those instances need to be more than flashes.

On offense, Kanter’s shooting also took a step back. Again, playing more minutes against starting caliber players had an effect. Kanter still shot a solid 49.1 percent from the floor, but that is quite a dip from his 54.4 percent his second year. Lastly, his FTA rate was a career-low .239–about half as much as his rookie season.

What can be expected from Kanter this season? Like his teammates, it is a big mystery as to how head coach Quin Snyder’s system affects the big man on both ends. With the emphasis on ball movement and spacing, it seems reasonable that Kanter will be a prime beneficiary. With his green light from the outside, an interesting story line will be his 3-point shooting. While just 3-15 in the preseason, he has a nice release. Should he be able to develop this facet of his game, it will be a huge boon for the team and his career. As he showed in his recent 27-point outing, Kanter possesses the ability to put up big numbers on any given night. There’s a lot to be said about having a big who can erupt offensively.

Snyder has constantly beat on the defense drum. It’s evident that defensive effort and intensity will be big factors in one’s playing time. Perhaps Snyder can help light a fire under Kanter. Having a rapidly improving Rudy Gobert behind him might also serve as motivation. It should also be noted that former Utah All-Star and fellow Turkish hero, Mehmet Okur, is back in the Jazz fold. As someone Kanter looked up to immensely growing up, Okur could be an impactful mentor for Kanter.

The most quoted stat last season was Utah’s record with Kanter starting. While that cannot be ignored, it will be compelling to see if that carries over. With his role not being firmly rooted last season, there was some uncertainty for the Turk. Kanter knows he will be the starter from day one this year and that he and Derrick Favors will be given more opportunities to play together. True, their 2014 statistics together were not glowing. However, in the preseason–and yes, it’s the preseason–the combo performed much better.

This is the last week when extensions for Kanter’s class can be consummated. With Friday approaching quickly, it appears more and more likely that the deadline will come and go without an agreement. How Kanter plays this season will determine the long-term future with the Jazz. It would behoove both parties should he demonstrate defensive improvement. If he does that, it would not be surprising to see Utah work to keep Kanter in a Jazz uniform for years to come.

It’s time for Kanter to Choose His Own Adventure.

Author information

David J Smith

Besides writing for Salt City Hoops, David contributes to the Utah Jazz coverage for the Deseret News and has written for the Utah Jazz website and Hoopsworld.com (now Basketball Insiders). He graduated from BYU and works for LDS Philanthropies. He and his incredibly patient wife have four amazing children, with a fifth joining the Smith family fun soon.

A Wisconsinite who spends way too much time watching mediocre basketball. Started to love the game as I watched the "Big 3" era of the Bucks in the early 2000's but was eventually raised on the teams lead by the likes of Michael Redd, Desmond Mason and Andrew Bogut. Those mediocre teams helped me grow an appreciation for the less than spectacular style of basketball which has lead me to different gigs with Queen City Hoops (Bobcats), Ridiculous Upside (D-League) and now Salt City Hoops.

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Hidden deep in the shadows behind Gordon Hayward’s new long-term contract or the promise that lies behind the team’s selection of Dante Exum or Rodney Hood, there’s a heightened amount of uncertainty resting with the future of Enes Kanter with the Jazz organization. Despite being the third overall pick in the 2011 draft, Kanter has never been able to eclipse the likes of Derrick Favors, Gordon Hayward and Trey Burke when it came to being the focal point of the team’s future plans. While that reduced role can be blamed on a variety of different factors, it’s been easily apparent that Kanter hasn’t improved at the same level as the previously mentioned trio.

Now as Kanter embarks on his fourth NBA season, his future with the team appears to be uncertain. Before the season-opener against Houston on October 29th, the Jazz have one final opportunity to give him a new extension before he enters the 2015 off-season as a restricted free-agent. While Utah will still hold the keys to Kanter’s basketball future in restricted free-agency, this period will be the final time where the Jazz can offer him an extension without the interference of other franchises.

While his contract situation will be figured out when the Jazz start their 2014-15 season, there’s still a lot of skepticism in the air surrounding his role inside the team’s front-court.

Following the departure of Paul Millsap and Al Jefferson during the 2013 off-season, Kanter and Derrick Favors were looked at to be the main catalysts of Utah’s front-court for the future. However, those plans didn’t exactly seem to work out, as offensive inconsistency and struggles on the defensive end helped push Kanter to the Jazz 2nd unit for the majority of the season.

In regards to his work on the offensive end, the aforementioned inconsistencies masked the fact that Kanter is in possession of a solid all-around offensive arsenal. With that in mind, Kanter’s main method of attack continues to be in the post-up, which represents 31% of his overall production on the offensive end. While it might seem obvious due to the amount of the time that he spends in that specific area, Kanter showcases a large amount of comfort in post-up situations, which allows him to score in a multitude of different ways.

Perhaps the biggest reason behind Kanter’s post-up success rests with his extremely solid footwork. By utilizing that skill, Kanter is easily able to create separation from the opposing front-court player. While it’s rarely been showcased during his first three seasons with the Jazz, Kanter is able to use that footwork to create enough separation from the opposing defender to hit a turn-around jumper.

However, Kanter’s main use for that aforementioned skill is to work his way past the opposition to get an easy look at the rim. As a 6’11”, 247 pound front-court player, it’s extremely impressive to witness the quickness that Kanter exhibits when he’s able to work around the opposition.

Inside the paint, Kanter has continued to be extremely effective, as he shot 62% from inside the restricted area. As apparent for most front-court players, Kanter exhibits a large amount of confidence when he’s working inside the paint. Because of his solid quickness, Kanter’s able to get a consistent advantage over the opposition, whether utilizing the pivot to get a better angle at the rim or using his swift feet to work around an inside defender.

While his work in the low-post and inside the point sit at the center of his offensive repertoire, Kanter has shown an ability to hit a mid-range jumper. Even though it isn’t with the same consistency as his work on other ends of the court, Kanter was able to shoot a respectable 38.7% from mid-range.

With the inclusion of Dante Exum and Rodney Hood to the Jazz organization, Kanter’s prowess as a mid-range shooter should pay immediate dividends for the young duo. As Hood and Exum get accustomed to both the heightened NBA pace and Quin Snyder’s offensive scheme, being able to work alongside Kanter in pick-and-roll situations, should help create some openings for the young duo as the opposing defense will probably look to keep their focus on the Jazz forward.

A lot of the worries that surround Kanter rests with his ability, or inability, as an all-around defensive option. While there never be expectations that he’ll ever be the same level of defender as his Utah teammate, Derrick Favors, Kanter has definitely struggled to be able to be able to consistently defend opposing front-court players.

The main reason behind his defensive struggles is that it seems that Kanter showcases some hesitance when it comes to applying pressure to the opposing front-court player. That hesitance is continuously showcased in low-post and mid-range situations. In the low-post, Kanter’s inability to apply pressure allows the opposition to easily work closer to the rim, which ultimately leads to a bevy of easy baskets.

While it’s definitely a good idea to keep some space against a front-court player that’s working around the top of the key, because they can ultimately work their way towards the rim, Kanter rarely closes in when it’s easily apparent that the opposition is going to shoot from mid-range.

Another large flaw with Kanter’s defensive approach is that are a multitude of times where he zones in on the ball-handler rather than his designated opponent. While “ball-watching” can occasionally be beneficial, there are too many times where the opposition is easily able to get an open look around the rim because Kanter focused on another player.

In regards to the uncertainty that surrounds Kanter’s Jazz future, it’s doubtful that he’s going to get that desired long-term extension before the season opener. While Kanter’s on-court performance and base numbers (16.6 points and 10.1 rebounds per 36 minutes) definitely seem to be worthy of a solid extension, it really isn’t apparent that he’s made any notable strides during his three-year stint with the Jazz. As the team continues to examine the players that will hopefully carry them to future success, the lack of progression, especially with his defensive work, is a huge factor behind him potentially not getting that desired extension.

Another huge reason behind Kanter not getting that extension rests with the 2015 Draft class and the apparent progression of Rudy Gobert. While Gobert wasn’t a consistent part of the Jazz roster during the prior season, his performance during the FIBA World Cup is a sign that he has made strides on both ends of the court during the off-season.

The correlation between the 2015 NBA Draft and Kanter not getting that extension rests with the wide array of front-court prospects that might be in that class. While the Jazz will probably have some more success than they had during the prior season, they’ll probably still remain in the thick of the lottery picture. Inside that lottery range, the likes of Jahlil Okafor, Karl Towns, Cliff Alexander, Kristaps Porzingis and Willie Cauley-Stein sit as potential prospects that could be on the Jazz radar during next year’s draft.

Despite the worries about inconsistency, Kanter has still showcased an ability to score from multiple ends of the court, which will be extremely beneficial to a Jazz roster that has struggled through their fair share of offensive slumps. Especially with the uncertainty surrounding the offensive impact that Derrick Favors or Rudy Gobert will be able to make, Kanter should play a role as a solid and reliable offensive option.

Author information

Dakota Schmidt

A Wisconsinite who spends way too much time watching mediocre basketball. Started to love the game as I watched the "Big 3" era of the Bucks in the early 2000's but was eventually raised on the teams lead by the likes of Michael Redd, Desmond Mason and Andrew Bogut. Those mediocre teams helped me grow an appreciation for the less than spectacular style of basketball which has lead me to different gigs with Queen City Hoops (Bobcats), Ridiculous Upside (D-League) and now Salt City Hoops.

Ben Dowsett is a life-long Jazz fan and general sports fanatic based in Salt Lake City. He also writes for Nylon Calculus (Hardwood Paroxysm/Fansided Network), and can be heard on the airwaves for the SCH podcast and appearances with ESPN AM 700. With a strong background in both statistics and on-court fundemantals, he writes primarily as an in-depth strategic analyst. He can be found on Twitter at @Ben_Dowsett.

Between FIBA and summer league play, August pieces written by local and national media alike, and even gushing podcast segments, it’s been a Gobert love-fest this offseason. Shoot, there hasn’t been this much ado about Rudy since 1993. But with international play all wrapped up and September flying by, the hype factor slowly beings to taper off into reality – the next on-court action we’ll see from the towering Frenchman, along with the rest of his Jazz teammates, will be at training camp and, before you know it, the start of the preseason.

The questions as he once again steps onto an NBA court will be twofold, and one will be dependent on the other:

1. Can Gobert develop his offensive game to a point where lineups featuring him can hold their own on that end, particularly while next to Derrick Favors?

2. If so, what does this mean for the future of Enes Kanter – and/or how might Kanter fit in the picture?

As far as the first question goes, they’ll be hoping for short memories, as Charles would say. With the necessary caveats surrounding small sample size, Gobert’s time on the court saw an already bland offense crater spectacularly. A squad that was already just outside the league’s bottom five in per-possession scoring posted an ugly 95.3 points-per-100, over a full point lower than Philadelphia’s league-worst mark, per NBA.com. These figures were even worse (though on an even smaller sample) when he was paired with either Favors (82.0) or Kanter (88.4).

There’s cause for optimism, however. For one, all this Gobert gushing is happening for a reason – he appears to have improved, perhaps somewhat drastically. Favors and Kanter are both at a point on their developmental curve where they’ll be expected to have done the same to some degree. And my writing it ad nauseam doesn’t make it any less true: the new coaching staff will be expected to leave their own imprint on personnel across the board.

Speaking more generally, precedent exists for a successful frontcourt even if development stalls for one or more of the potential pieces involved, including the spatially-challenged Favors-Gobert unit.

Compare them, for instance, with one of the league’s top offenses in San Antonio. Gobert, like typical Spurs starter Tiago Splitter, is mostly ignored by opposing defenders outside the paint. The two combined attempted just 15 shots from beyond 10 feet all last season – 14 by Splitter, who also played about triple Gobert’s minutes. Meanwhile, Tim Duncan is a better midrange shooter than Favors both in perception and reality, but perhaps the latter gap isn’t quite as large as the former would indicate. The two shot nearly identical percentages between eight and 16 feet from the hoop (37.7 percent for Duncan, 37.6 percent for Favors) last year. Duncan had a big advantage from beyond 16 feet, but team context plays a role here; where Favors drew assists on 66.7 percent of his makes from this distance, Duncan did so 95.5 percent of the time. We see that San Antonio’s vastly superior talent and comfort within their system led to Duncan almost never being forced to create these shots for himself, with Favors far more often required to do so. This jives with SportVU data tabulated by my Nylon Calculus colleagues Darryl Blackport and Krishna Narsu, which shows that Duncan took 37.5 percent of his total shots while “uncontested” (no defender within four feet) while Favors took just 24.5 percent of his under the same circumstances. The spacing and team construct was just so different, and this certainly played some role.

Obviously, the Spurs are on a whole other planet, one this Jazz core may never even get within eyesight of. Numerous advantages in nearly every other aspect of NBA basketball of course play a large part in their ability to keep a Duncan-Splitter frontcourt viable offensively where Utah failed to do so with their own. But like several other aspects of the Jazz franchise moving forward, San Antonio has laid out the blueprint. Common sets like Horns, detailed in the video below on a team-by-team basis by Coach Nick of bballbreakdown.com, and the specific variations used by Gregg Popovich are among the simplest starting points:

If we’re being fair, some of this may end up being a bit thin. Favors and Gobert are likely to struggle offensively as a pairing, perhaps mightily so, unless one or the other undergoes a shooting renaissance that seems highly unlikely. Heck, the Duncan-Splitter duo, while far more effective than Utah’s frontcourt to be sure, was still among the least productive of San Antonio’s high-volume two-man units, and Pop wasn’t shy about mixing things up to inject more spacing when necessary.

This is where Kanter remains an intriguing piece of the puzzle. Should the change of coaching scenery and another offseason of work be enough to propel him from awful to simply below-average defensively, his abilities as a midrange shooter and low post operator could be surprisingly complementary while Favors or Gobert run more pick-and-roll action.

In truth, a Favors-Kanter-Gobert three-headed monster frontcourt may be nothing more than a pipe dream. Any major tangible improvement from Kanter before his expected RFA summer could easily push his perceived value around the league even further beyond what the Jazz would be comfortable paying him, and Gobert comes in at a far cheaper tag and in a situation they control for longer (he’s also just as large of an offensive question mark as Kanter is a defensive one, if not more so). And don’t forget, Utah is widely expected to score another solid lottery pick in the 2015 Draft – one that, at least for now, appears to contain at least three or four highly-touted prospects at the big positions. For all of Dan’s talk (and my repetition) of consolidating assets, the opportunity to pick a name like Jahlil Okafor or Karl Towns might be too good to pass up, particularly if one of the three incumbents isn’t pulling their weight.

Author information

Ben Dowsett

Ben Dowsett is a life-long Jazz fan and general sports fanatic based in Salt Lake City. He also writes for Nylon Calculus (Hardwood Paroxysm/Fansided Network), and can be heard on the airwaves for the SCH podcast and appearances with ESPN AM 700. With a strong background in both statistics and on-court fundemantals, he writes primarily as an in-depth strategic analyst. He can be found on Twitter at @Ben_Dowsett.

Dan covered Utah Jazz basketball for more than 10 years, including as a radio analyst for the team’s Spanish-language broadcasts from 2010 to 2014. He now lives and works in New York City where his hobbies include complaining about League Pass, finding good doughnut shops and dishing out assists for the Thoreau It Down team in the Word Bookstore basketball league.

Among other gutsy calls, SCH founder Spencer Hall said he expects Rudy Gobert to play his way past teammate Enes Kanter on the Jazz’s depth chart during this upcoming season. There’s no dearth of excitement about Gobert’s tools and talent, but Spencer’s specific boldness seemed unprecedented enough to invite a conversation.

Could Gobert be ready to leapfrog his friend and go from fringe rotation player to major minute guy? What would it take? Today, we read the tea leaves relative to the battle for big man minutes.

Why it could happen

At first blush, you see things to make you think Spencer’s not that crazy. Several of Gobert’s numbers are closer to Kanter’s than you might think: they both shoot 49% from the field, and in terms of total value, Gobert adds .045 WS per 48 to Kanter’s .050. They certainly add that value in different ways, but viewed at the broadest possible level, you realize Gobert is already close in terms of per-minute value.

Gobert is already an elite rebounder, with the 7th highest total rebound percentage of any player with at least 100 minutes. His block percentage is amazing, too: 7.4% of what opponents put up while Rudy is on the floor gets sent back by the big guy. That number is second only to Cole Aldrich. Rebounds and blocks are two numbers that generally hold up OK on a per-minute basis when playing time is increased.

If Gobert works his way ahead of Kanter in the short term, it will likely be because of his defense. It’s hard to find a statistically significant category where Gobert isn’t much better defensively. He gets baited into more shooting fouls, but that’s to be expected from a rim protector.

What held Gobert back on that end was defensive understanding. Too often he freestyled, jumping out of system to do what he thought was the right thing, and leaving four teammates out on a limb. But I’m encouraged by what we saw on the court and what he said off of it in his time at the Las Vegas Summer League. Getting him to understand team defense and be in the right places appears to be a focal point. When he’s tuned in, he can absolutely dictate what’s going to happen on the defensive end for long stretches, and not a lot of players can do that.

Gobert’s defensive FG% at the rim was 10 percentage points better than Kanter’s and the best on the team. In fact, he was 8th in the league in that stat among players who defended at least one such play per game in at least 40 games last season. That tells us that, if the discipline is there, he might not be far from being an elite defensive player already.

While their shooting numbers overall are closer than one might expect, the composition of Gobert’s offensive game is very different from Kanter’s. The latter is an able mid-range threat, with healthy portions of his used possessions coming at that range, and with pretty good results for a big man. Not so with Gobert.

A whopping 99% of Gobert’s attempts — and literally all of his points from the field — came from inside 10 feet. Even in the 3-10 foot category, Gobert hit just 13% of his shots, so we’re basically talking about a guy who’s not an offensive weapon if he’s not within arm’s reach of the hoop. And while his Summer League performance was encouraging in overall terms, it wasn’t a departure from this script. Of his 19 Summer League field goals, 18 were in the immediate basket area — the other a short jumper created off a teammate’s drive.

There’s something to be said for knowing who you are, and the fact that nearly 80% of his attempts come around the rim shows that Gobert understands his limitations. But it’s hard to play 4-on-5 on offense, and unless Gobert is sitting on the rim, that’s essentially what the Jazz have to do with him out there. The sub-.500 free throw shooting doesn’t help things much.

Passing is another area where Gobert is wanting. He had a total of just seven assists last season — all season!It doesn’t look good even on a per-minute basis; if Gobert played 24 minutes per game, he’d have an assist about every third game. And it’s not just assists – he doesn’t pass a lot, period. According to the NBA’s player tracking, he had fewer passes per minute played than any other Jazz player (although Kanter was close).

What he’d have to improve to move up on the depth chart

More than anything, Gobert has to address his free throw shooting if he’s going to spend 20+ minutes per night on the court. You can’t shoot 49% from the line and be on the court in any kind of pressure situations.

There’s a chance that in improving his technique relative to free throws, he might even develop a nice touch for short jumpers. If so, that’s gravy. He doesn’t necessarily need that; you can play big minutes in the middle for a good team even if your offensive range is limited. But any improvements in his offensive ability would help justify his minutes enough to unleash the havoc of his defense on other teams.

He also needs to get better at effectively and legally screening. Especially since he’s already a less-than-ideal P&R partner given that he can’t pop off the pick, it is extremely important that he not further diminish his effectiveness on the screen with offensive fouls or bad positioning.

And, as mentioned, he must improve as a ball mover. I wish we had player tracking from Vegas to see if he’s understanding and embracing Quin Snyder’s hot potato ideology. He and Kanter were the only Jazz men last year to pass the ball less than once per minute played. Again, seven assists in a season is just not enough.

But for now… it’s Kanter’s to lose

Gobert has a lot going for him, especially in terms of physical tools. But for now, I think Kanter has the inside lane on this one. In terms of skill areas, Kanter is far enough ahead that I think he really controls his own fate. If he does the little things, the things that require focus and discipline, I can’t imagine him surrendering too many rotation minutes to Gobert of anybody else.

Put another way: it’s easier for a highly skilled player to improve overnight in terms of effort and energy than for a raw player to improve overnight in terms of skill.

Of course, this isn’t about pitting players against one another, and the Jazz would do well to help both Kanter and Gobert realize their full potential. And either way this particular discussion turns out, the Jazz should gain from a developmental standpoint. If Gobert does indeed lap Kanter, it means he has developed enough offensively and figured out how to channel his unique, elite defensive abilities. If he doesn’t, it means Kanter has improved his focus and habits, and is doing the little things it takes to win.

When you win 25 games, nobody’s job is guaranteed, so I’m sure everybody will have to come to camp ready to earn things. But as of today, I think Kanter is penciled pretty heavily into that second big slot.

Author information

Dan Clayton

Dan covered Utah Jazz basketball for more than 10 years, including as a radio analyst for the team’s Spanish-language broadcasts from 2010 to 2014. He now lives and works in New York City where his hobbies include complaining about League Pass, finding good doughnut shops and dishing out assists for the Thoreau It Down team in the Word Bookstore basketball league.